County Wicklow

“We don’t have any automatics left today”.

“But I have a reservation.”

“I know, but we don’t have any remaining.”

At this point I can’t help but be reminded of the Seinfeld episode.

Actually, my truck back in Denver and my new Volvo in Brussels are both manuals. But I was trying to eliminate at least one of the following three problematic variables: lack of "Sat Nav" (aka GPS system), manual transmission, and driving on the “wrong side” of the road. I thought the combination of trying to figure out where I was going and shifting with my left hand while driving on the left could potentially be disastrous. Hence, my request for an automatic.

“Well, what else do you have?”

“A Land Rover Discovery Commercial, or a Mini, but both are manuals. Or I can search around and maybe get an automatic here in a couple of hours.”

That’s not much of a decision. Ripping around tiny Irish country lanes in a bright red Mini with its BMW engine sounded like a fine idea to me. Considering our original reservation was for a Nissan Micra, the non-reservation reservation turned out OK.

An Irish colleague had recommended we visit County Wicklow, known as The Garden of Ireland, located immediately south of Dublin. Our first stop on the drive down was Powerscourt Estate. Sweet digs, nice plot of ground, and a "mountain" view -- that's the Great Sugar Loaf in the background of the second picture below. What you can't see is that the interior of the "house" was completely destroyed after a devastating fire in 1974, right after the completion of a major renovation. Instead of rebuilding it as before, they converted it to a public building and took a more austere approach with the restoration, cleaning and repairing everything, but leaving bricks exposed, not rebuilding certain floors, and keeping furnishings to a minimum.

As luck would have it, the Powerscourt Picnic Run and Rally just happened to be there on the same day. Rows and rows of antique cars, trophies, and champagne for everyone! That's Simone and a vintage Rolls in the picture below - check out the serpent horn above the wheel.

After Powerscourt, it was on to our residence for our short stay in County Wicklow: Kilpatrick House. Kilpatrick House is a 300 year-old home that has been in the current family for the last hundred years. Our young and funny host, Howard, ensured our time at the B&B was perfect by greeting us with tea and scones, and including Bailey's Irish Cream in our porridge. The estate is a working dairy farm, and the family home became a guesthouse in 1941. Amazingly, our host's grandmother cooked and served three meals each day for the three families who stayed there. And, this all without the benefit of electricity, which didn’t arrive until 1955.

A bit of history. St. Patrick initially came to Ireland as a slave. At some point he left the island, and when he returned to spread Christianity he landed somewhere on the coast southeast of the Kilpatrick House. One of his earliest churches (perhaps the first) is about 500 meters from the Kilpatrick House, and a well said to have been blessed by The Saint Himself is on the Kilpatrick House grounds. Kil is “church” in Gaelic, hence the name Kilpatrick House.

Simone at Kilpatrick House.

The next morning we embarked on a tour of County Wicklow. First, we visited the Avoca Handweavers' mill. It claims to be the oldest traditional mill still operating in Ireland, and, sure enough, there is still handweaving going on.

Rain thwarted our attempt to see the historic monastical ruins of Glendalough, so we decided to take a scenic driving tour instead. The scenery, what little we were able to see through the driving rain, was beautiful in a haunting way. Lush green valleys, jutted with slate gray rocks, barren of trees, and covered in heather. It's easy to see why movie execs chose this area to film "Braveheart," though interesting in that it's Ireland not Scotland.

Here’s Simone enjoying the Irish weather. This is August.

Despite the weather, it was a great drive through Wicklow and we ended the day back in the tiny village of Redcross at the Snug Restaurant. It seems reasonable to assume that, being in Ireland, we might take in some traditional Irish song and dance so we inquired with our waiter. He replied in a thick brogue, "Well, if it's dance, then it'll have to be in a hall because Irish dance, ya know, legs everywhere." But alas, we were unable to find a hall with "legs everywhere".

On our final day in Ireland the rain let up just long enough for us to see Glendalough. St. Kevin founded the monastery in the 6th century and it was active for over 600 years. All that remains today are its ruins. Check out the roofs...they are made of stone!

We packed a lot into our visit to the Emerald Isle, and will post a photo album as soon as the talented customer service folks at Picasa deign us worthy of a reply. But until then...sláinte.